George Zhou
Planets that transit their host stars can be characterised by a range of in-depth observations. Transiting planets are key to understanding the atmospheres, composition, and dynamics of exoplanets. In this talk, I will describe some of the exoplanet characterisation studies that we have undertaken, using both ground-based eclipse observations and Kepler transit photometry.
I will introduce the Anglo-Australian Telescope survey of hot-Jupiter eclipses, a new survey we are undertaking to measure the infrared, multi-band secondary eclipses for a large number of southern hot-Jupiters. These observations are providing a set of temperatures and colours to characterise the most irradiated hot-Jupiters. I will also describe our modelling of Kepler transit light curves. We show that we can measure the spin-orbit alignment for very long period planets orbiting gravity-darkened stars. We can also measure the shapes of the planets themselves, and search for rapidly rotating, oblate planets observed by Kepler.